Today we are going to be comparing and contrasting our two Cinderella stories that we read over the past two lessons. I will continue to ask some text dependent questions that I've had students working on in the past two days, but students will also spend today gaining a difference perspective of the similarities and differences in the stories because we are looking at both stories simultaneously. When students answer my questions they will have to be specific and describe the characters, settings, and major events from both stories. As we discuss our story today in our partner groups and as a class, students will need follow agreed upon rules and speak in complete sentences.

After I partnered my students up they had the chance to decide who would be Person 1 and who was going to be Person 2. You can see how I've set up our rules for discussion in the reflection in this section. I said, "Today we are going to compare and contrast our two Cinderella stories. I am going to ask you the same questions from the last two days. We are really going to get the opportunity to see how our two stories are the same and how they are different. There are two new vocabulary words I want you to start using today. The first word is contrast. Can you say that? Contrast means to tell how two things are different. The second word is compare. Can you say that? Compare means to tell how two things are the same. Now that you know these new words we are going to use them from now on."

I said, "We are going to talk about the stories first. I will ask you the questions and you and your partner will talk about it. Then we'll discuss our answers as a class. " I asked the questions on pages 3 and 4 of the teacher questions handout to help get students thinking about specific, detailed comparisons they could make between the stories. The questions are:

After giving the students further experience with our stories by discussing them in complete sentences it was time to record our information on our double bubble maps. I pulled up my Smartboard lesson and turned to slide 14 to show the double bubble map. I also passed out individual maps to each of my students. I said, "Now its time for you to show your understanding or our two stories. We are going to start with our contrasting points first. What does contrasting mean again? That's right, it means how things are different. We are going to start with our green bubbles first, then work around to red, purple, and light blue. I will ask you a question, you will write the answer for Cendrillion in the green Cendrillion bubble then you will write the answer for Adelita in the green Adelita bubble."

"I want you to work by yourself but I don't want you to worry if you can't remember something. We will check our work at the end and you can make changes to your bubble map then." I wasn't going to take a formal grade on this map so my plan was to informally assess how well each student knew the content by watching them as they completed the map. Students had already had 3 opportunities to discuss the content, so I felt confident that students would be able to complete their map independently. As I circulated around the classroom I not only observed how well my students were able to answer each question, but also that they were filling in the correct bubbles. Once again, here are the questions I asked:

Resources (1)

Resources

Once we were done with our contrasting points it was time to compare. I said, "Now we will work on our comparing points. What does comparing mean again? That's right, it means how two things are the same. We write our comparing points in the dark blue bubbles in the middle because these bubbles are shared by both the Cendrillion and Adelita bubbles. We will start with the top bubble in the middle and work our way down."

Again, I walked around the room as students were completing their maps, seeing how confident they were with their answers and that they were filling out the map correctly. These are the questions I asked:

What did both stepmothers make their daughters become?

Why didn't either girl get in trouble at the ball?

What happened to each girl at the end of the story?

Once we were done with our comparing points, I showed the completed bubble map that is on slide 18 of the Smartboard lesson. Students checked their answers and made adjustments if needed.

In the past, I have let my closures get stagnant and have tended to do the same thing. So I found this excellent resource 40_ways_to_leave_a_lesson online and have really tried to make sure my closures are interesting. I decided to do a closure called "Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down." If the students agreed with my statement they would put their thumbs up; if they didn't agree with me they would put their thumbs down. If they didn't agree with they would have to justify their answer.

After explaining to the students how to do our closure I would make statements such as:

Cendrillion is from Mexico.

Adelita wore braids in her hair.

Cendrillion wore a turban on her head.

Adelita wore pink slippers.

It was an easy and fun closure, and the kids loved disagreeing with my statements and telling me why I was wrong.